Organizers of the Game Developers Conference released new details on what games and developers would be part of this year's Indie MEGABOOTH Showcase exhibit. The exhibit, which is open to all GDC passholders, will be open at various points during the week of the 2015 Game Developers Conference, March 2-6 (Moscone Center, San Francisco).

The Indie MEGABOOTH Showcase highlights a collection of games from independent developers who have banded together to show off the latest and greatest indie games at conventions across the world in one large and sprawling space.

One of the biggest tragedies in 2015 (so far) as a writer who has covered video games from various angles over the last 18 years, is seeing a publication like Joystiq and all of its affiliate sites get shut down by its parent company AOL.

One of those affiliate sites, Massively, faithfully served massively-multiplayer online game fans for years (since 2007) and did so with passion and care for the subject matter it covered so well.

In the inaugural episode of the Take This Podcast - the official podcast for the mental health awareness organization that serves the gaming community - executive director and co-founder Russ Pitts shares the story of his realization that he was suffering from an anxiety disorder and what he finally decided to do about it.

With around 60 hours to go (as of this writing), the Kickstarter crowd funding campaign for That Dragon, Cancer has surpassed its funding goal of $85,000. The crowd-funding campaign for the game has managed to raise $89,375 from 3,046 backers so far. That Dragon, Cancer is described by its creators as a living love letter to Ryan and Amy Green's son Joel, who was diagnosed with cancer. Joel died last year.

Ralph H. Baer, the man recognized as the father of video games, passed away on Saturday at his home in Manchester, New Hampshire at the age of 92. Baer created the very first video game system - the Magnavox Odyssey. It was patented in 1971 and launched in the summer of 1972. It sold 130,000 units the first year.

With less than eight days to go That Dragon, Cancer needs a little over $12,000 to be successfully funded on Kickstarter. As of this writing the game has generated $72,513 of its $85,000 goal from 2,415 backers. Developers Ryan Green and Josh Larson turned to Kickstarter in November to fund the rest of the game's development. If successfully funded the game will released in 2015 on multiple platforms including Ouya, Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and LittleBigPlanet 3 developer Sumo Digital has completed a management buyout, acquiring itself from parent company Foundation 9 Entertainment today. The UK-based studio was acquired by mega development studio Foundation 9 back in 2007, and has collaborated on big-name titles and built its own games since then.

The studio was able to buy itself back from Foundation 9 thanks mostly to cash from private equity firm NorthEdge Capital.

GitHub revealed that it will give free access to a suite of development tools that small-scale game makers may find useful. The only catch? You have to prove that you are a student.

The offer is part of the GitHub Education initiative, and is available to students over the age of 13 and currently enrolled in an academic program. If you can do that, you can get access to project development help and tools like the Crowdflower crowdsourcing platform, a hosting plan with the DNSimple DNS management service, and free access to Unreal Engine 4.

IndieCade, an annual international festival that celebrates independently developed games, has revealed the more than 35 games that have been named nominees for awards at IndieCade Festival 2014. This year's event will be held in Culver City, California October 9-12, 2014. This year's event will showcase almost 150 independent games and highlight the importance of "promotion, cultivation, and community of independent games development."

At least one good thing came out of the state of Rhode Island losing $75 million dollars (plus an undetermined amount in related costs including penalties, etc.) from the failed loan deal with Curt Schilling's 38 Studios: the success story of Danny Mandel and Ben Chichoski.

When 38 Studios went bankrupt and left dozens of its employees unemployed and abandoned - including many who relocated to Providence and the surrounding area to work there - employees like Danny Mandel and Ben Chichoski had to find something else to do in order to survive.

Indie developed contemporary game culture will be front and center at the EMP Museum’s upcoming exhibition, "Indie Game Revolution." The exhibit will open Nov. 8 and will feature such games as "Lovers In a Dangerous Spacetime," "Gone Home," "Quadrilateral Cowboy," "Papers, Please," "Tenya Wanya Teens," and "Never Alone," "GALAK-Z: THE DIMENSIONAL" (a sci-fi space shooter created by Seattle-based 17-BIT), and more.

A 16-year-old programmer has developed a browser add-on that makes it very easy to track how money is influencing politics. As detailed by Ars Technica, programmer Nicholas Rubin has created a web browser add-on called "Greenhouse."

FilmBuff and Participant Media announced that the new documentary, "The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz," is in select theaters throughout the U.S. and available via on-demand video rental through iTunes, Vimeo, Amazon Instant Video, Comcast, DirecTV, Xbox Video, Sony Entertainment Network, Vudu, and Google Play. You can also find out what theaters are carrying the film today via Fandango.

"The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz" will open in select theaters throughout the United States June 27, and will be released online through iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Comcast and DirecTV. The film will be offered exclusively to own through Vimeo On Demand for the first month of release.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata will not be attending the company's annual general meeting of shareholders this month because he recently had major surgery and is at home recovering from it. The 54-year-old is recuperating from an operation to remove a growth found in his bile duct. Iwata made the announcement in an open letter published on Nintendo's site this morning.

The V&A’s first ever Game Designer in Residence, Sophia George, today launches the annual game design competition for students, Dare to be Digital. George started her career on Dare to be Digital, winning in 2011 with her family-friendly puzzle game Tick Tock Toys. The Dare to be Digital competition is an annual affair hosted and run by Abertay University.

In an interesting interview with Gamestar, Todd Howard of Bethesda Game Studios admitted that if Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind had not been the commercial success that it was on both the Xbox and the PC, then Bethesda might have gone out of business.

The last time we checked games journalist Andrew Groen's Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for his book, A History of the Great Empires of Eve Online, it had more than doubled its initial goal of $12,500. As of this writing the project sits at $34,487. With the project fully funded and earning nearly three-times its original goal, Groen (pictured, left) has been talking about some things he can do to make the project more interesting.

The annual Ludum Dare will begin in the wee hours of this evening and in multiple time zone to boot. Founded by Geoff Howland, and running since 2002, Ludum Dare challenges developers of all skill levels to make a game in 72 hours. Since its launch the community has run more than 22 regular events, and has collectively created thousands of games.

Lucas Pope's popular indie game Papers, Please won the Most Innovative and Best Gameplay categories at the 11th Annual Games for Change Awards. The annual awards honors games that show creativity and aspire ideas. In Papers, Please players take on the role of an agent at a border crossing who is charged with approving or rejecting entry into their country.

The Fullbright Company's popular hit Gone Home won the Game of the Year category.

YouTube user Buddy7heElf has broken the Spelunky world-record score, with a total of $3,140,325 last week (thanks Polygon). The latest Spelunky world-record score comes from YouTube user Buddy7heElf, who posted a complete play-through with the record-breaking high score last week.

Lyon, France-based indie developer Little Worlds Studio said that it is "playing its last card" and "places its fate in the hands of the public" with the launch of an initiative to save the company through what it is calling a "Kickfailer." Unlike a "Kickstarter," this initiative seeks support through its already established free-to-play mobile game Mana Crusher.

The Fine Young Capitalists is looking for a few good women (or anyone who self identifies as a woman) to take part in its special Women In Video Games Initiative. To take part, would-be applicants are asked to submit a pitch document about a game idea that is right around 1,500 words in length.

The submissions will be judged by the community, with the top five best pitches getting some very professional treatment.

Here's something you don't see happen every day: a major video game, a prominent YouTube personality and a mega pop star all coming together to create something special. The ultra popular sand box world building game Minecraft got some mad props recently in the music video for Lady Gaga's hit song, "G.U.Y."

Lucas Pope's popular game Papers, Please took home the top prize at last night's Independent Games Festival Awards. In addition to winning the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Pope's game was honored with awards for Excellence in Narrative, and Excellence in Design.

It is with deep regret that we report that Joel Green, the young child who is the inspiration for That Dragon, Cancer, has passed away. This heartbreaking news comes from the That Dragon, Cancer website and an update to Joel's personal website.

On March 12th, 1989, Tim Berners-Lee put forth a proposal to make information sharing possible over computers, using nodes and links to create a "web." While the CERN physics lab where he worked could not justify the project, his bosses allowed him to do the work there in his spare time. That little side project by Tim Berners-Lee became what we know now as the Internet.

A GoFundMe crowd-funding campaign has launched to raise money for games journalist Brandon Boyer, who was left with over $100,000 in medical bills after his insurance company Humana refused to pay them, using a "pre-existing condition" clause in his insurance policy. Keep in mind that Boyer's surgery, which saw part of his small intestine and liver removed, happened before the Affordable Care Act went into effect.

The winners of the National Coalition Against Censorship's ninth annual Youth Free Expression Project Film Contest have been chosen Winners will be flown into New York City for a screening event and an awards ceremony at the New York Film Academy on March 29. This year's theme, "Video Games in the Crosshairs," is of particular interest to those who love games because it asked contestants to make a video dealing with such issues as gaming, violence, virtual reality, and censorship.

Last weekend at Seattle Startup Weekend a team of developers and enthusiasts decided to create another Twitch-based experience similar to PokemonPlaysTwitch - only with a Pacman game re-geared as a massive 2-player game. One Twitch channel plays Pacman, while the other plays Blinky. Both channels allow viewers to input movement commands to keep Pacman away from Binky, while the other one inputs commands in the chat window to chase Pacman down and gobble him up...

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm